Banel & Adama
Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2024
February 29 - March 10, 2024
In Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s feature debut, set in rural Senegal, Banel (Khady Mane) and her husband Adama (Mamadou Diallo) find their relationship tested by pressures from the community, possibly triggering supernatural repercussions when they resist the roles and responsibilities that tradition dictates for them.
Q&A with Ramata-Toulaye Sy on Mar. 3
In a rural village in Senegal, Banel (Khady Mane) is happily married to Adama (Mamadou Diallo), the younger brother of her deceased first husband. Though their love is passionate, the relationship is tested by pressures from the community, which expects Banel to assume traditionally feminine domestic responsibilities, while her husband is meant to inherit the role of village chief from his late brother. Both young adults resist the mandate to fill these assigned duties, incurring disapproval from those around them—and possibly triggering supernatural repercussions. In her feature debut, Senegalese-French writer-director Ramata-Toulaye Sy conjures lyrical imagery reminiscent of Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven, placing two memorable young lovers against a landscape as beautiful as it is inscrutable. A Kino Lorber release.
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